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Legal Translation Services for ITC Investigations

We’ve blogged about legal translation and legal interpreting services at FTC hearings, and about intellectual property translation. In today’s global economy, many U.S. companies are benefiting from the cost-saving advantages of offshoring some of their operations – particularly, manufacturing. But, as with any cost-saving measure, there is a downside to offshoring. For instance, as companies move operations to foreign jurisdictions, new challenges for protecting the patent rights of the U.S. companies arise. That’s when legal translation services for the ITC investigations become important. Unlike the U.S.-based patent infringement cases, U.S. courts are often inadequate forums for addressing infringements that allegedly take place in foreign jurisdictions. The main challenges tend to involve obtaining proper jurisdiction and proving the infringement under foreign discovery rules.

One potential solution is the use of the United States International Trade Commission (ITC), which recently has become an important resource and tool for protecting U.S. intellectual property rights and investments abroad. The ITC, by definition, is a quasi-judicial federal agency whose purpose is to adjudicate and enforce intellectual property rights in international trade through Section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930, as amended, 19 U.S.C. sec. 1337.

According to the legislation, the ITC has the power to investigate and address unfair methods of competition and unfair acts. The ITC is unique in that it gains jurisdiction not through personal jurisdiction but due to the infringing products’ presence into the U.S.

In order to bring a case before the ITC, the first step is to see if one’s patent rights are protected under the foreign jurisdiction. To accomplish this, one first needs to obtain a professional foreign language translation of the foreign laws.